


Shimmer of Your Shine

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:42:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s because the time slips away like cold tea down the drain when Shuuzou comes back from his morning classes and he hasn’t had enough time to finish his mug before he’d left because he’d woken up late again and no one had thought to clean it out because the kids are oblivious and his mom is overworked and that’s just one more thing she pushes aside and Shuuzou doesn’t mind cleaning it out but still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shimmer of Your Shine

Spring comes and the sunlight intensifies; the earth rotates around the sun and Shuuzou’s sister describes it to him the way it is in her science textbook, crisp new pages bound in hardcover and then covered up with brown paper per public school mandate that then gets scribbled on by her friends on the school bus, tic-tac-toe games and hearts with arrows through them and what passes for fancy letters when drawn by eight-year-olds. She reads it aloud to him when he asks, in the language he’s spoken so often he can no longer tune it out into mindless foreign-sounding babble unless he’s really tired, until she breaks off in the middle of the sentence because once she’s stopped rushing through the words she’s found the answer to one of the tougher questions, and she presses her lips together while she writes in cramped cursive on the paper, concentrating if instead of a small part of a small elementary school exercise this is the answer to the universe. And maybe she’s working her way up to that, but there’s no time to marvel at it because their mom’s coming home from the hospital soon and Shuuzou needs to heat up something for dinner and she needs to finish her questions and her readings and it seems like a little bit much for a second-grader but Shuuzou supposes he only has vague memories of that age, anyway.

It’s because the time slips away like cold tea down the drain when Shuuzou comes back from his morning classes and he hasn’t had enough time to finish his mug before he’d left because he’d woken up late again and no one had thought to clean it out because the kids are oblivious and his mom is overworked and that’s just one more thing she pushes aside and Shuuzou doesn’t mind cleaning it out but still. It feels like more of a waste when the dark liquid passes over the cheap metal surface and he turns away after scrubbing the inside of the mug, the ring of settled residue. He’s only got a little bit of time before work anyway; the auto shop won’t wait for him and his boss is always cranky and there’s no use spending time in the empty house so he grabs his keys and gets out into the already-tired sunshine, driving the long way because there are fewer messy intersections and more quieter side roads in residential areas, the only places he really feels comfortable driving in (biking is a different story but, well. He doesn’t have a bike or a license for one, only a secondhand car refurbished with junk parts from work that had a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it when he’d bought it and almost-miraculously is still holding itself together, tape deck and all).

Tatsuya comes by a couple hours into Shuuzou’s shift and it’s then he takes his break while one of his coworkers changes Tatsuya’s car’s oil and Shuuzou steals bites of Tatsuya’s sandwich for a pick-me-up until Tatsuya tweaks his nose and then Shuuzou flicks his forehead and soon enough they’re having a slap-fight as if they’re younger by half than they’d been the first time they met. Shuuzou catches Tatsuya’s long, thin fingers in his and kisses them and Tatsuya grins back, flashing brighter than the sunshine off a freshly-waxed car.

“Quit messing around; your break’s almost over,” Shuuzou’s boss yells and Shuuzou scowls (mostly because his boss can’t see).

Tatsuya laughs, kissing his mouth quickly and handing him the rest of the sandwich before hopping back into his car and tipping Shuuzou’s coworker generously.

“See you tonight,” he says and people shouldn’t actually look this cool driving off in old cars because this isn’t some movie and yeah it’s Tatsuya but still.

Shuuzou’s father looks good today; he’s been looking better lately—it’s all relative but still, better this than huddled in bed under the blankets when the temperature’s threatening three digits in this weird system and not being able to eat. They sit out on the roof garden; it’s not particularly pleasant but it’s good to soak in the sun and talk under the natural light and escape the choking, awful hospital atmosphere and the sterile walls and clatter of carts in the hallway and sensible shoes on cheap tiles that reverberate like omens of death in Shuuzou’s ears. They lapse into silence as the sun sinks just a little bit lower, oozing like the insides of a lava lamp. They talk about Shuuzou’s sister and her science textbook and Shuuzou’s brother and his mother and about Tatsuya (he’d come by this morning for an hour or so and sometimes Shuuzou wonders how he got lucky enough to have a boyfriend like this who gets along so well with his parents and his father tells him as much and even though Shuuzou doesn’t need to be reminded it’s worth repeating).

Shuuzou meets Tatsuya after dinner at the courts; he’s already half-dead with fatigue but he’s going to stretch himself just a little more, just a tiny bit further. There’s never enough time for anything; there’s never enough for him and Tatsuya to be together as much as they’d like—school and work and conflicting schedules fuck up everything and they’re already struggling to get their bearings and it seems almost easier in hindsight when they were on different continents, when Tatsuya made a larger effort to pull away and make Shuuzou chase him—but maybe they just had more energy for that kind of thing then; maybe they’re already past their primes but maybe this will right itself—and Shuuzou’s going to make himself believe that it will, that this feeling of being overextended won’t last, that they’ll get used to it or get a slightly lighter load, that the circles under their eyes will lighten and soften back to normal.

Tatsuya’s moves are slick and polished like a freshly-waxed wood court, but he can pull this off on the asphalt in his old sneakers, basic plays that work faster and tighter than they’re supposed to and the dribble he was just starting to focus on when he’d met Shuuzou (and he’d let Shuuzou see him fail at it, had practiced it on him only for the ball to roll off his fingers or for Shuuzou to steal it away) and a sweet jumper that’s almost the opposite of the long-range shot he used to rely on so much because with this one you see the ball swish through the hoop, heavy and almost harshly loud against the remains of the netting. It’s a statement; it’s made with the same confidence that he tucks his arm around Shuuzou’s waist after their win on a last-second low pass from Shuuzou and Tatsuya’s perfect conversion. Somehow, they’re making it, even if they collapse into Shuuzou’s bed when it’s closer to the time they have to wake up than the time they should have fallen asleep in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> day 2 of the song challenge: last song you purchased "Make You Better" by the Decemberists (song has little to do with the fic again haha but that IS where the title comes from so)


End file.
